Research...

Damn you England! Getting my hopes up and then putting in a performance of mind numbing turgidity against Algeria...

So in order to cheer me up a bit I went into the garden and did some more accurate measuring and took some research photos.

My Back yard is 52 feet x 70 feet so in my chosen 1:25.4 scale (1mm equals 1 inch) that scales up to a layout size of a smidge over 2' x 2'9" within my guesstimate 2' x 3' and well within my 4' x 2' maximum.

Here are some research photos...

Above: I've always had my eye on this corner of the garden for some kind of garden railway layout.
Above: The line would run along towards the shed where I had envisioned some kind of store room for stock amongst the lawnmower, snowblower and other sundry gardening items kept in there.
Above: Then I could sit back on the deck here and watch the trains go around.

That's how I had always envisioned things and I don't see any reason to change my plans for the model.
The only compromise I might have to make is having things take up a larger area on the model than they would in reality as the model's 3" gauge trains would be approximately twice the size of the G scale stock I have.

Update to the crazy idea

I had a quick pace about the garden last night to see approximately how big it was. I must have looked quite the sight "heel and toeing" across the garden, deck and the three season porch...
Anyway the upshot of this is that a model of my back yard will comfortably fit in 3'6" x 2'. A bit smaller than I expected.
Another bonus is that my wife is looking forward to modelling some of the plants and flowers in the garden in G scale....

A crazy idea

The other day I got a very nice letter from Ed Olson organiser of the Granite City train show, thanking me for my participation and inviting me to attend the Christmas (thats the December 11th) show.
Now a tradition has developed that I attend with some T scale. So I could attend with Gonou as Eishindo have bought out some new trains and stuff lately. Or I could build a new layout...
This is where things got crazy. Trainaidsa the US stockist have the garden train locomotive for advanced order so I ordered one thinking that the diesel outline loco could be converted to work on Gonou.
Then I thought well why don't I build a model of a garden railway?
It has already been done by a member of talking T gauge and very well too, in a cutlery drawer no less. So I wouldn't be breaking any new ground. Perhaps I could put a different slant on it.
It was then my brain went into creative hyperdrive...
I've always wanted a garden railway in my back yard, so why don't I model that!
No backbreaking earthmoving or anything. Just regular modelling. I don't have to go far to measure the buildings to model.
So what scale would I model this garden railway in?
Well I already have lots of G scale materials from my Gn15 days so that's a no brainer really.
Now here's the complicated bit. There are lots of different scales associated with "G" 1:20.3, 1:22.5, 1:24 and 1:25.4
I myself like 1:25.4 which is conveniently 1mm equals 1 inch. So my T scale trains would be models of 3" gauge trains in G scale. Which is nice and easy to explain to people. If I was to model G scale trains in my garden I'd have to use a scale approaching 1:12 or a dolls house scale of 1 inch to the foot. This would probably make re-creating my house prohibitive which is the ruling factor in the layout.
So I thing the first thing to do is to go and measure my house and garden and see what size works best for the space I have. I'm thinking that a size of 4' x 2' would be adequate.
We'll have to see what transpires...

I might be on to something

See this? Beautiful and atmospheric isn't it? Those cherry blossoms really scream "This is Japan" at you don't they? It's Hitsu station on the Matsuzaka to Ise Okitsu branch line.
I think that this is the kind of scene I'd like to recreate in my first T gauge layout.
Nothing too complicated. Just a nice scenic display for the trains to run through. Something to keep me interested as I develop my T gauge modelling skills. After all I don't expect to be able to model an E3 Shinkansen set immediately.
A quick trawl around the internet has revealed several other pages of photographs of the station and its environs. There's a wikipedia entry(in Japanese) that has a very nice overall shot siting the station in the landscape. I could really get to like it. Now, I wouldn't go for an exact copy. Just something that recreates the feel of the pictures. So that would mean the cherry blossoms for a start. I do like the idea of modelling one (indeed several it appears) of them. In fact there are an awful lot of trees thereabouts. It's a good job I have a nice production line of them going already.
Well I seem to have convinced myself for the minute. Time to start sketching a few ideas and thinking about the building of my first T gauge layout.